5 Things You need To Start A Blog Of Your Own

Arianna Huffington founded The Huffington Post in 2005 when she was in her late fifties. Soon enough, The Huffington Post became the Internet’s hottest digital newspaper that covers everything from business to the latest happening stories. Recent trends suggest that Huffington Post receives at least 8 Million in view in a single month. Neil Patel is another blogger who has championed the art of personal branding through well-written blogs. His detailed how-to blogs on SEO and digital marketing make him the winner in the internet world.

The point we are hinting is – blogging is no longer a hobby but it has evolved into a full-time profession with its own identity. Thanks to content marketing and social media marketing, its importance has only increased by notches. In fact, a survey by Social Media Examiner found that “58% of marketers said “original written content” is the most important type of content, outdoing visuals and videos”. This is good news for all those who have been putting away the plans of starting a blog.

Now, if you are someone who has a flair for writing and has the idea of starting a blog of your own, this post is for you. We will go through a step-by-step process to build your blog that will turn into a traffic magnet. And that traffic, if used strategically would become your direct revenue source, just like Robbirichards who grew his traffic by 272% In 30 Days without paid advertising.

There are 5 major steps you have to take in order to build and launch your own blog.

• Deciding what your blog is going to be about
• Choosing the appropriate blogging platform
• Finding a domain and hosting service provider
• Designing and personalizing the blog
• Publishing content on the blog

Now let’s see each of these points in detail.

Deciding what your blog is going to be about

Do you have a specific topic of interest? Do you have adequate knowledge or trivia to share about it at length? Or, are you planning to pick a topic, become a master of it and then share your knowledge with the world?

Finding out which topic your blog is going to speak about, set the direction for your blog creation process. Right from picking the right theme for your blog to keeping the feeds running, everything is reliant on the topic of your blog.

For example, if you are going to write about women fashion and makeup tips, you will need a blog theme that is glamorous, elegant and one which gives the user the feel of the topic.

Choosing the appropriate blogging platform

Next to finding which topic you want to blog about, is finding the platform upon which your blog will be built. In software terms, the blogging platform is the backend where you will customize the admin panel, configure roles and user permissions, personalize the layout using web elements and paste the content so that it appears like a true blog on the frontend.

The most popular blogging platforms are:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Squarespace
• Joomla

There are several other CMS (Content Management System) platforms too, all of which help you integrate additional functionalities into your blog to make it truly user-friendly. Most of these platforms allow you to create your own blog at no cost. You might have to shell out few dollars for premium features or to customize it in a specific way with themes. Of course, the choice of your blogging platform will also determine how much you can monetize your blog traffic.

Choose a domain name & find a web domain hosting provider

The domain name is the identity of your website. It is the address that your audience will type into the address bar to reach your website. So we advise picking a domain name that has the following traits:

• It is short, easy to spell and easy to remember
• The name can be easily turned into a brand. A generic term may not work here
• The domain name can be attached to product or service ranges to help rank better

Remember that once your domain name is selected and purchased, you cannot change it. So be double sure before you pick a domain name for your website.

Once your domain name is selected, next comes the task of finding a web hosting provider. Web hosting is the foundation upon which your website will stand. In other words, it is like an external hard drive where your website data can be stored. So, your choice of a web hosting service should be something that is secure, flexible, scalable and easy-to-use. A good web hosting provider will support the growth of your business.

Publishing content on the blog

This is an obvious point, but, you need to know something a bit more than the usual. Once you have the base created for your blog, it is time to create and publish content as much as possible.

To gain maximum search engine traction, use SEO-friendly keywords on your blog. You can use free tools like Google keyword planner to find out which keywords can bring you the maximum organic traffic. Update meta title, meta tags, meta description, etc. for your blog so that search engine bots can read them easily and give them a deserving search engine result.

Start Blogging!

Well, that is the shortest we could put across the basic stuff you have to do to create and launch a blog of your own. Now that you have the know-how, why wait any longer. Start blogging right now.